Yep. Really really good. And difficult too. I think I've gotten worse each time I've played. UPGRADE. Just plain great. My dad said after his one game: "Okay, next time we're in Indiana we have to play this game again because it really is fascinating." My dad!!?! UPDATE. Fan-freakin-tastic. Sooo, when's the expansion due again? UPDATE: Still great, figuring out how to manipulate your position is so interesting.

This is an excellent game, cleverly tuned and nicely variable, with short turns that are enjoyable to plan without triggering AP. It's got a puzzle quality to it, in a good way, and it lasts exactly as long as it should. It feels very polished, and it's relatively easy to teach (even to non-gamers).

I love the way it combines 3/10 random victory conditions, 4/8 random special abilities, 4/LOTS of terrain placements, and random card draws into a whole that doesn't feel random, isn't purely tactical (you need to start with a strategy, but adapt it), and which feels satisfying without being too heavy. I've never played anything quite like it.

Although it's not a game where I feel connected to the theme, without the theme it wouldn't be nearly as fun -- despite being quite abstract. It plays differently with two (more wide-open, and you can often accomplish more of your original plan) than with 3+, but it's fun with all player numbers I've tried it with.

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October 2014: Bumped up from a 9 to a 10. This is one of my all-time favorite games, delivering a consistently fun, engaging experience at every player count and with new as well as more experienced gamers.

Components: Simple wooden settlements. Gorgeous board, with a few little extraneous details on the hexes to give them personality. I like the pasted on fantasy theme, but would enjoy it more if the settlements were something a bit more mobile, like horses; it just doesn't make sense to have them flying all over the place.

Experience: First, it's fun. It's a challenge to reach the various superpowered locations, to meet the victory conditions, and to allow for maximum maneuverability. It's best to not be adjacent to a particular terrain type, but failing that, it's best to be adjacent to as many of that type as possible, to create the most options.

Second, it's fast. Games have been coming in at an hour each so far. We're partly slowed down by having to help each other recognize and adhere to the adjacency rule, which for some reason is really tough to wrap our brains around.

Third, it's highly modular. The intersection of different map configurations, different location powers, and different victory conditions help to keep this game interesting. We can play several games back-to-back, and each has a distinctive feel to it, with unique struggles. I love the opening of games like this (e.g., Settlers of Catan, Thunderstone) where I survey the land, trying to recognize the various vulnerabilities to be exploited.

There are a few combinations of victory conditions that really complement each other (Knights + Citizens), and some that don't (Citizens + Hermit), so part of the strategy is identifying how the objectives overlay on the board, and which locations will be of most use. The location tiles are mostly balanced, except for the boats. Boats are incredibly useful, regardless of the victory condition, and there are half as many of them as there are other location tiles. In a recent game, I was able to use my first two turns to encircle the boats location, locking out all the other players, which gave me a huge advantage; and their card draws prevented them from stopping me.

Luck of the draw can be damning, but the game is so much fun! Games tend to be very close, which might mean it's just a matter of luck.

I just love that game. Who says it has no choices and it's too random? There are lots of choices and you have to think very clearly where to build and what's gonna happen. Yes, the game has random elements, but which game hasn't. For my opinion it only makes those choices harder. Very good game.

My favourite game since my first play of it. It was love at first sight. Should be the number 1 rated game on the geek, but unfortunately some people just don't get it, thinking it is a luckfest that would be much better if you drew more cards. Oh dear, oh dear I think you totally missed the point.

Quick, varied gameplay each time, interesting mechanics, and the first player doesn't always win nor does the first to use all settlements. Not the scope of Dominion, but clearly that wasn't the idea. More strategic than at first apparent. Includes Capitol, Crossroads, and Nomads expansions.

Those who have been arguing that having only one card in hand makes it too luck-dependent are missing the point I think. With more than one card, there would be way too many options and you might as well just do away with the cards altogether. They're there as a constraint - if you play well, you should have sufficient options most of the time anyway. I'm really enjoying how the goal cards in play dramatically change the morphology of the board. It'd be kind of fun to photograph some endgame layouts and try to guess which goals were in play.

Not a bad game. It's easy to teach and quick to play. The varying boards, special powers, and goals means this game has a high degree of replayability.

Mar-2015: I've fallen in love with this and have acquired all the expansions. With repeated plays, the amount of control increases significantly. However, this is a game that all about front-loaded strategy. Your first 2 - 3 turns will often determine your game and mis-playing them can be unrecoverable. It actually has a bit of a similar feel to Terra Mystica, but much shorter.

4-26-14-Just a note to add that we play with all expansions in the mix from the time we received them. There are a couple of things we leave out of Nomads; Miles does not like the tile that allows you to remove an opponent's settlement and also does not like the stones. We love the way the expansions have kept the game fresh even after so many plays. I would never choose to play without at least the Nomads exp.

7-29-12-To illustrate how much my husband (the non-gamer!) loves this game: he asked me today to order another copy because he's afraid we will wear out our current copy and then it will be out of print! The only thing bad about this game is that I fear we will never get to play some of our other games that are still sitting in shrink!

3-8-12-We have played 41 games so far, in 3 weeks--we're obsessed! Miles and I like to play 2p tournaments, best out of 3. The more we play, the more we find there is to this one. Sometimes you draw the objectives or the action tiles and you think, "we just had those in the last game!" but we've found that games are radically different from just one rotated player board or 1 card or tile. We've also found that games are no longer 2p solitaire! We are quite aggressive in our play and cut each other off when it suits us.

2-23-12-We've found the games goes on too long (for us) if there are more than 2 special action tiles (of the 4 used for each game) which require players to move pieces from the board rather than from their supply. 2p games go about 15-20 min. and 3p not much more; maybe 5 min.

I find it easier to get a truly random setup by shuffling the special action tiles face down on the table and picking 4, then finding the corresponding game board sections, shuffle them on the table and put them together randomly without rotating them again after the shuffle is done.

Sometimes, depending on the objective cards drawn, this game plays as multiplayer solitaire and other times we very much get in each other's way, cutting each other off from large areas of the board. That even happens in 2p games! I like both ways AND I find it lots of fun seeing what kind of game is going to result from each random setup.

2-17-12-Right now I am obsessed with this game so I am making the guys play with it as often as possible. So far we have 7 plays, either 2 or 3p. I'm getting the hang of it a little better and am able to be more competitive. It's great fun and the guys like it, too.

2-12-12-Only played a couple of times but we are liking it. It's not quite easy as some people are making it out to be. Each decision is quite important even though the rules are simple. I like the way that different objectives are used for each game and also boards. All the variety should make this a highly replayable game. It also plays fast which is always a good thing at our house. I do see that this might be more fun w/4 players since then you would get in each other's way more, influencing your decisions more directly.

UPDATE: Risen from 7.5 to 10 with repeat plays. This is a modern classic. It doesn't grip on first play, but my love for it has grown over time. It's a lovely deceptively simple semi-abstract, a worthy successor and possible improvement over Knizia classic Through the Desert. Let's say Through the Desert with special powers. Truly brilliant.

I prefer more complex, longer-lasting games, as they tend to provide more fulfillment than lighter ones, but I've found that Kingdom Builder offers a satisfying game experience. It's simple and easy to teach, but it's still fun and will likely serve as a great gateway game for my non-gaming friends and family.

UPDATE: If you've only played the game once or twice and feel that it is too light, I encourage you to stick with it. It's one of those games that improves with repeated plays. Admittedly, though, it does play better with a lower player count.

Comment: The first couple plays of it were pretty "ok", but after seeing how some of the tokens work together and how only having a single card still gives you a significant amount of choices, I've grown to enjoy it more and more with each successive play. There is so much to explore and each expansion just keeps bumping it up a notch for me. It's so simple and yet there is so much hidden depth to it. Lovely components and quick gameplay makes this a homerun.

I love the simple rules and the replayability of the game. Different objectives each time change completely the way you try to develop your areas. There is a luck factor in the card draw that prevents it to be very strategic and puts it in the lighter scope (but I like that).

Got this for XMas - played it 5 times so far and I'm really enjoying it. I'm not sure why it cops so much flack?It's a light fun game with good variability built in, you play the cards you're dealt and work within the victory conditions - plays ok with 2 but better with 3 - 4.

Another I'm glad to have on my Nexus. In fact, playing on the computer taught me that we'd been playing incorrectly. Would like to see what this would be like two-player if you only used two of the four boards...

Excellent game, fast, easy to learn but rich in strategic possibilities with just the right dash of luck for seasoning. This was an unexpected gem of gaming awesomeness for me since I generally lean more towards AT games.

This is a great abstract strategy game. Many people find the strategy unintuitive at first (myself included), until somebody explains the importance of controlling what areas your pieces are touching. After you understand that concept a lightbulb goes on and the game is really interesting and fun. If you don't understand that your not going to think the game is interesting at all. For more information see: https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/839989/winning-adjacency-or...

Kingdom Builder has just the right amount of randomness to make it a fun two-player game. This is important as I don't find most deterministic perfect-information games to be very interesting without multiple opponents.

I am tempted to rate this a 10 as I really love this game right now but I'm not sure how long it will hold up once the novelty of the different setups starts to wear off. I predict it will have staying power though.

A great puzzle that plays out quickly and differently each time, while having just enough theme to be the only abstract I have played that evokes a sense of accomplishment. Luck factor is only an issue until you realize that luck is just another obstacle to overcome, and there are indeed ways to do so. Collecting special powers is like a micro-engine building exercise, and the flexibility is using them before or after your mandatory action is what makes each play feel much more fluid and less rigid than the average abstract game. It also doesn't hurt that, in my mind, this is as close as we are gonna get to Dominion: the boardgame.

I love this game. So many options provided by boards and cards means no two games are the same - it plays fast and is easy to teach new players. Always happy to play this even when I know I usually lose. The player is at the mercy of what terrain card he draws so you need luck as well as strategy but the game is short so even if you have bad luck it does not drag on.Having now played this with expansion cards nd 5 players I find the gap slows up a bit as people have more options. The base game is clean and fast

This is a perfect gateway-game. I can bring this to the table in any group constellation - gamer, family, girlfriend. There is a lot of replayability in the base game box because of the variety of tiles and cards, changing each round. It is easy to teach, its fast and there is enough tactics to keep everyone interested and involved. There is interaction depending on the player count, basically because of the limited space on the board. I love it with 5 players (expansion), when a lot of blocking others is going on.

I've played this game dozens of times with and without the expansion elements and I've concluded that I have very little negative to say about it. If you think the theme is weak, or the artwork simplistic, or the strategy shallow, well, I suppose I can do little to change your mind.

I love the game for the variation on the map setup and the huge variety (even in just the base game) of the special abilities. Building for the randomized goals is always rewarding to me. I enjoy the nuanced set of choices afforded by the single card received each turn.

For me, Kingdom Builder hits a sweet spot of strategy and simplicity. It's deep enough that I keep returning to the well, and simple enough that I can teach it to non-gamers. Its spot on my shelf is well-deserved.